Skip to main content

Strawberry Cupcakes with Lemon Zest Cream Cheese Icing

"This was an experiment gone amazing! My seven-year-old and I baked these and agree that they are the best cupcakes. It's a simple strawberry cake mix with a little extra zest."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Strawberry and cream cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 285 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

The recipe

14 cupcakes
Prep25 min
Cook20 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

  • Strawberry Puree
  • Cupcake Batter
  • Lemon Zest Cream Cheese Icing

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Make the strawberry puree: put the frozen strawberries, 2 tablespoons water, honey, 1 tablespoon sugar and 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest in a small saucepan. Simmer over medium heat for 8 minutes, mashing, until thick. Cool completely.

  2. Heat the oven to 350°F (177°C) and line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

  3. Whisk the cake mix, 1 cup water, 3 eggs, 1/2 cup vegetable oil and 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest until smooth. Fold in the cooled strawberry puree.

  4. Divide the batter among the liners, filling each about two-thirds full. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean. Cool in the pan 5 minutes, then move to a rack to cool fully.

  5. For the icing, beat the softened cream cheese and room-temperature butter on medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes.

  6. Beat in the confectioners' sugar, vanilla extract, lemon juice and 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

  7. Spread or pipe the icing onto the cooled cupcakes and serve.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Strawberry + cream cheesetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together285 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Strawberry + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,385 recipes

    Shared aroma: p-vinylguaiacol (spicy, fruity).

  3. Honey + strawberrytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together354 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  4. Cream cheese + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (honey, lemon, sugar, strawberry, egg, cream cheese, butter):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Blackberryabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Raspberryabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against honey, lemon, sugar, strawberry, egg, cream cheese, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).